Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Prokopyev are carrying out their second spacewalk this year

KOROLYOV (Moscow region), August 15. /TASS/. Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Prokopyev are carrying out their second ‘Russian’ spacewalk this year outside the International Space Station, sources from the Mission Control Center outside Moscow have told TASS.

"The exit hatch of the Pirs docking module opened at 19:17 Moscow time. The cosmonauts’ spacewalk will last for about six hours and ten minutes," the Mission Control Center said.

During their extravehicular activity, the Russian cosmonauts will conduct a next stage of the Test experiment. They will dismantle containers with microorganisms installed on the ISS modules Poisk and Pirs in August 2017 that will later get back to Earth. The experiment is aimed at examining time restrictions for viability of microorganisms in open space to decide where they come from.

The cosmonauts are also expected to install equipment on the external surface of the International Space Station for the ICARUS experiment on monitoring wild birds.

Floating outside the ISS, the cosmonauts have already deployed Russian satellites SiriusSat-1, SiriusSat-2, and two Tanyusha SWSU satellites designed at Southwest State jointly with enterprises of the missile-space industry. Ending their spacewalk program, they will take panorama pictures and shoot panoramic video within the framework of the Space 360 project.

Last time the Russian cosmonauts conducted their spacewalk was on February 2-3. Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov set a new record for Russian cosmonaut by spending 8 hours and 13 minutes outside the station.